


Insert Tab A into Slot B: A Story about Kanan’s Lightsaber

by Findswoman



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hardware, Humor, Lightsaber Repair, Lightsabers, stuff that sounds like innuendo but turns out to be completely innocent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2019-01-27 08:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12578184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: In which Kanan has trouble getting his lightsaber together. Takes place during season 2 of Rebels (on Garel). Many thanks to Raissa Baiard for keen-eyed beta-reading and invaluable advice on Rebels characterization; this story dovetails with her humorous Kanan/Hera story Date Night.





	Insert Tab A into Slot B: A Story about Kanan’s Lightsaber

Ezra had never been so excited about Jedi practice before. Today was the day Kanan was supposed to begin teaching him lightsaber dueling techniques. He was bouncing like a caffeinated tumble bunny as he descended the _Ghost_ ’s boarding ramp into the abandoned landing pad shortly after breakfast, lightsaber in hand. Those in the immediate vicinity would have heard him singing a happy song. Unfortunately, at this hour, those in the immediate vicinity consisted solely of Chopper, who was busy scrubbing some ion scoring off the hull and kept sending _bwop_ s of annoyance in the padawan’s direction.  
  
It was not long, however, before Kanan came down and practice began in earnest. Kanan led his student through the usual sequence of meditative warm-ups, then watched him as he reviewed his lightsaber basics.  
  
“And now the moment I know you’ve been waiting for,” Kanan said as his student paused and took a sip from his canteen. “We’re going to start form III today.”  
  
“WOOHOOOOO!!” cheered Ezra, bouncing some more.  
  
“I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic about it, though remember that a Jedi does not let even his positive emotions run away with him.”  
  
“Sorry,” Ezra sniffed. Why was his teacher _always_ such a party poodooer?  
  
“First,” continued Kanan, “we’ll go through the traditional series of two-person drills for form III, and then we’ll get out the sparring armor and put those techniques to use in a few practice duels. Are you ready?”  
  
“Most definitely.”  
  
“Now, ready position, saber out.”  
  
Standing straight with his shoulders back and feet shoulder-width apart, Ezra unhooked his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it. Kanan took the two pieces of his own lightsaber from their two different places on his belt and began to put them together. As usual, he inserted the upper emitter-shroud piece into the lower hilt piece and twisted them to lock them into place.  
  
But they did not lock into place. Instead, the emitter section fell out of the hilt and onto the ground with a _thud._  
  
“I guess I didn’t get it to click,” mused Kanan as he picked up the piece and tried again. Again the emitter fell to the ground. Sighing, Kanan picked it up again and fumbled with it some more. “Maybe—like this—”  
  
He tried different angles and different directions, occasionally grunting with effort, but nothing seemed to work. Meanwhile, Ezra had deactivated his own saber and was craning his head in Kanan’s direction.  
  
“Uh, Kanan? What are you… doing?”  
  
“JUST A MINUTE, EZRA—All right, maybe _this_ way—UNNHHH, no, that’s too tight—”  
  
“Maybe if you… um… just jiggle it a little?”  
  
“All right—UMPHH—” Kanan jiggled it more than a little. “THERE! _Whheew._ ”  
  
But once again the emitter tumbled straight to the ground. Kanan picked it up and squinted at it for several moments.  
  
“Ah, that would do it, of course,” he grumbled. “The flux-torque casing got stripped and now it won’t interlock with the emitter column.” With a sigh he reattached the two lightsaber pieces to his belt. “I guess this means I have to head into town and get a new one.”  
  
“But—but what about form III?”  
  
“I’m really sorry, Ezra. We’ll just have to wait on it till tomorrow.  
  
“All right, fine.” Ezra hung his head like a dejected mooka pup.  
  
“For now just practice your kata, and when you’re done you can ask Chopper to—ah, there he is.” He noticed the droid. “Chopper, could you please go get that crate of tennis balls out of the cargo hold?”  
  
“Bwop bwop bwop,” replied the droid and rolled off to do so. Kanan came closer to his student and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.  
  
“I’ll be back, okay?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
And with those words Kanan hurried off into the steely, vaporous hustle and bustle of Garel City.  
  
* * *  
  
After some minutes of searching, Kanan found the hardware store where Zeb and Ezra said they sometimes went for spare parts. At least he thought this was the place; he wasn’t usually the one who got sent on such errands, after all. It occupied two storefronts of a dilapidated brick building and sported a flickering old-fashioned lighted sign reading GRUG’AG’PYG’NAQ’S SUPER VALUE HARDWARE. Another sign flashed OPEN in large bright-red letters. Kanan wasn’t sure why he found himself fingering his blaster pistol as he approached the front door.  
  
The shop was one of the messiest, most cluttered establishments Kanan had been insince the Capital City Curiosity Shoppe back on Lothal. Tall shelving units teetered dangerously under the weight of various indeterminate machine parts and hardware implements, some of which—at least from where Kanan was—seemed frighteningly outdated and dusty. The shopkeeper, a coveralled Ugnaught who undoubtedly was the eponymous Grug’ag’pyg’naq, waddled up to Kanan and greeted him profusely.  
  
“Why, good morning to you, good sir! What can I do for ya?”  
  
“Good morning,” replied Kanan. “I am looking for a flux-torque casing to replace this one.” He took it from a pocket and handed it to the shopkeeper. “I think it’s either a size zero or a size double-zero, but I’m not sure.”  
  
The Ugnaught eyed the part for a moment, squinting. “Yessirree, that’s a size double-zero, and hoo boy if I ever _seen_ one so badly stripped. What in the Galaxy didja _do_ to that thing?”  
  
“I… don’t know.”  
  
“Well, you might want to size up to a zero. It doesn’t take much for double-zeros to get stripped, especially under heavy torque. What’s this from, anyway?”  
  
“Oh, uh, hmm…” Kanan had feared it would come to this. He didn’t dare tell the truth; there was no guarantee that this shopkeeper wasn’t some Imperial agent who would comm the Inquisitorius the minute he heard the word “lightsaber.” In moments like these he envied his padawan’s talent for weaving clever tall tales. “Well, um, you see…”  
  
There was an ear-shattering crash as a box full of something clattered to the floor from the upper levels of a shelving unit. Kanan spun around. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he had glimpsed a tuft of unruly blue-black hair disappearing behind a nearby display of Mynock-B-Gon spray.  
  
Grug’ag’pyg’naq, however, did not seem to notice, and merely sighed.  
  
“There goes aisle six- _aurek_ again. I really gotta get that shelf bolted down properly. Aw, never mind, I’ll get it later.” He turned and began to shuffle very slowly toward a dark closet doorway at the back of the shop, stroking his short, goatlike beard. “Y’know, I don’t get many people asking for flux-torque casings these days.”  
  
“Is that so?” _A Jedi shall not know impatience…_  
  
“Back around the Clone Wars people used to ask for ’em all the time, but since then, no sirree.”  
  
“Interesting. I wonder why.” _…nor exasperation…_  
  
The Ugnaught shrugged. “Couldn’t tell ya. Everyone used to ask for the ones from Lemerd, but they went out of business just after the Empire came to power… now, we may have some Sh’chob ones in the back… some folks say they ain’t as good as the ones by Lemerd, but if you ask me they’re pretty much just about the same.”  
  
“Ah.” _…nor the desire to whack excessively chatty service employees upside the head with a rolled-up newsflimsi._ Fortunately the shopkeeper had _just_ reached the closet door…  
  
…but then stopped suddenly. “Oh, an’ say… I see yours is titanium, but Sh’chob makes ’em in zirconium… if you think that’d be okay, because sometimes you can get corrosion an’ whatnot if you don’t—”  
  
_That does it._ Kanan lifted one hand and waved it subtly. “You shall go back there and find the thing already.”  
  
“I better go back there and find the thing already,” agreed Grug’ag’pyg’naq, then toddled off into the back room. No sooner had he disappeared from sight, however, than Kanan heard a loud—and familiar—“PSSSST!” behind him. He spun around to find himself face to face with none other than Ezra, who greeted him with a nonchalant “Hey, Kanan, what’s up?”  
  
“Ezra, what in the _name of the Force_ are you doing here?!” Kanan hissed. “You’re supposed to be back at the _Ghost_ practicing with Chopper!”  
  
“We ran out of tennis balls.”  
  
“Then do your kata or something! Or ask Hera if she has something for you to do! There’s no need to go following _me_ all over town!” Kanan heaved a deep sigh. “How did you even _know_ I was coming here?  
  
“Where else would you go besides Grug’s?”  
  
“You don’t even know what I was coming here _for._ ”  
  
“Oh, yes I do,” Ezra smirked. “You’re having some trouble with your lightsaber, aren’t you?”  
  
“SHHH! EZRA! NOT SO LOUD!”  
  
“Sorry, I just saw you fiddling with it during practice, and—”  
  
He stopped as the Ugnaught emerged from the back closet, carrying two small flimsiboard boxes. He laid them on the counter for Kanan to see. “Awright, here’s the size zero, and here’s the size double-zero.”  
  
Kanan looked from one to the other, then said, “I’ll take them both, just in case.”  
  
“Good thinkin’, good thinkin’. Anything else I can getcha?”  
  
“Well, um…” Kanan looked around. “Maybe also… a container of those BlasterKleen polishing wipes?”  
  
Grug’ag’pyg’naq pulled a large, brightly colored plastoid jar down from a shelf behind him and placed it beside the two flux-torque casings. “Awrighty then, let me get you rung up here...” At that point he noticed Ezra. “I’ll be with you in just a moment, young man.”  
  
“Oh, he’s with me,” interposed Kanan as he took out a few credit slips and handed them over.  
  
As he rang up the payment, the shopkeeper glanced from Kanan to Ezra and back again. “This your son?”  
  
“Um—well—”  
  
“Master Meiloorunbaum is my voice teacher,” Ezra piped up, ignoring the look of horror on Kanan’s face.  
  
“Your… _voice teacher?_ ”  
  
“Yeah. My voice teacher. He’s getting me ready to play Captain Korkorun in _ISD Pinn’afor_ , and we, um, need the flux-torque casing to fix my, um, tooka-o’-nine-tails.”  
  
“Is that so?”  
  
“Um, yes,” Kanan joined in. “He’s… he’s doing a great job. Yes. You should hear him on ‘When I was a youngling.’”  
  
“Mmmph.” Grug’ag’pyg’naq grunted incredulously as he bagged up the two flux-torque casings and the BlasterKleen wipes and handed them to Kanan. “Well, as we used to say back home on Cloud City, break an appendage.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“And you have a good day, now.”  
  
“You too,” said Kanan, pulling Ezra with him out the door. Then, as soon as it swung shut: “You do know that Captain Korkorun is a bass-baritone, don’t you?”  
  
“Yeah, and _you_ know that he doesn’t sing ‘When I was a youngling,’ don’t you?” came the rejoinder. “That would be Grand Admiral Porr-Trr, thank you very much.”  
  
Kanan cracked a sheepish smile despite himself. “You’re absolutely ridiculous, Ezra. Did you know that?”  
  
“You only just noticed?”  
  
* * *  
  
Kanan spent the rest of the day fixing his lightsaber.  
  
While the others busied themselves with the usual errands and mission preparations, he holed up in one of his favorite meditation spots—the control room attached to the _Ghost_ ’s abandoned landing pad—with the pieces of his lightsaber, the two new flux-torque casings, the container of BlasterKleen wipes, and the “Caring for Your Lightsaber” instruction sheet from his padawan years, all of which were spread out on the floor in front of him.  
  
“Let’s see here… ‘using a 3/16-inch arc wrench remove the projection tube from the emitter chassis’… all right…” Clinkety-clinkety-clink. “URGHH, UNNNHHH… what the… oh blast, this is a 1/4-inch, not a 3/16... oh well… UNNNNHHHH… there, got it… ‘position the conductance gasket between the projection tube and the replacement flux-torque casing, lining up the alpha and omega contacts as shown in figure 1… figure 1, where’s figure 1... Force, who draws these things? I can’t even see where the alpha contact…” Fwhup, snick-click. “All right, fine… now, ‘slide flux-torque casing through conductance gasket so that it interfaces with the holomagnetic contact at the base of the projection tube’… GNNN… GNNNNHHHH… Force, this is hard… UGHHHHHNNNGHHHH—” Fwhip! ZZZIIIING! CLANK! “Oh for Force’s sake, now it’s all _greasy_ …” Rub, rub, rubrubrub. Sigh. “Ah, much better. Okay, gonna try again… UNNHHH… UNNNGNHHHH… ” Fwhip! Click. “Perfect. Still gotta give it a proper polishing after dinner, though…”  
  
He reattached the two pieces of his saber to his belt, collected his equipment and the instruction sheet, and opened the door of the control room—only to find several of his crewmates standing there, eyes fixed on him. Ezra and Sabine were blushing profusely and struggling to stifle nervous giggles, Zeb wore the expression of a pygmy roba caught stealing from the Wookiee-ookiee jar, and Chopper was hanging back, trying to hide behind the legs of as many organic beings as possible. Hera was the only one not present.  
  
“Um, hi, Kanan,” began Ezra.  
  
“Yes, hello, Kanan,” echoed Zeb.  
  
“Bwoop,” said Chopper, then went back to hiding behind Zeb.  
  
“Hi, everyone. What’s up? Why’s everyone look so worried?”  
  
Sabine gritted her teeth. “We… just… wanted… to… check on you, that’s all.”  
  
“Yeah,” added Ezra again. “We won’t… um… tell Hera if you, um… don’t want us to.”  
  
“Bwup.”  
  
“Tell Hera? Whaddaya mean?” Kanan threw his hands up in exasperation. “I was just fixing my lightsaber, for crying out loud!” ¶

**Author's Note:**

> Except for the emitter, the emitter shroud, and the arc wrench, all of the tools and lightsaber components mentioned in this story are fanon and pure technobabble.
> 
> Capital City Curiosity Shoppe, Lemerd (based on Dremel), Sh’chob (based on Bosch), Mynock-B-Gon Spray, BlasterKleen polishing wipes, and the “Caring for Your Lightsaber” instruction sheet are all fanon.
> 
> Grug’ag’pyg’naq is an OC.
> 
> ISD Pinn’afor is a fanon GFFAification of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta H.M.S Pinafore, one of whose main characters is a Captain Corcoran who does, at one point, threaten to use a cat o’ nine tails. One of the numbers in Pinafore is “When I was a lad,” sung by the character Sir Joseph Porter, KCB, rather than Captain Corcoran.
> 
> form III lightsaber combat: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Form_III  
> Garel City: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Garel_City  
> mooka: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mooka  
> roba: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Roba  
> Wookiee-ookiees: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wookiee-ookiee  
> and of course  
> Kanan’s lightsaber: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kanan's_lightsaber


End file.
